The State of Machinist in DT - Let's talk about it (again).

[Serenaya]

Been meaning to make this post for a while. I'd like to talk about and hopefully once again raise awareness about the state of what is generally considered, and is statistically one of the weakest jobs in the game depending on the situation, as well as a job that feels like it's been left "half finished" for quite some time now, and the goal here is to push this feedback to the developers.

I'll detail the problems, and some potential solutions to these issues. A lot of them are not new and are things we've been sounding off about for years, but sadly it seems to have been ignored, not seen or are far different to the ideals of the devs. If it's the latter case, I'd love to know why. Sincerely.


Problem - Damage output: MCH has consistently been the weakest in terms of output in any scenario that doesn't allow it to build gauge prior to phasing. This is to say, outside of ultimate (and even then sometimes), MCH in any prolonged uptime scenario struggles against its fellow phys-ranged. Why? Put simply, because when you have 2 jobs (BRD/DNC) that benefit from 7 others in the party, their value increasing with gear, player skill etc. a selfish DPS that is not tuned to be just that, will always fall behind. Any other job buffs also indirectly buff BRD/DNC. This is a problem we are also seeing with PCT for what it's worth. Our saving grace is crit scaling, but this has not proven effective before and once again BRD/DNC still benefit more due to 7 others also scaling with crit and playing into their raid buffs.

Solution: Quite simply - give us a raid buff. Our purpose as a selfish DPS is not being fulfilled and arguably hasn't been since the Shadowbringers rework. Ranged tax seems to be a reason for the undertuning but it's clear by now that movement is not a concern for pretty much every job these days, and so this philosophy is no longer working. Yes hitboxes have gotten smaller again (thank you), but there are often easy ways for melee/tanks to maintain uptime with safespots catered to them, and casters are hardly having an issue moving either these days. If we were given a raid buff OR a self buff to ensure more personal damage to give us better raid-buff contribution, it'd put us firmly on par with BRD/DNC and when it comes to picking for world race/hardcore prog, as well as any optimisation efforts. Players can pick and choose freely. While this isn't necessarily a problem for developers to think about, seeing it locked out of PFs is really quite insane when MCH is actually better in Party Finder due to a higher disparity of player skill and gear making BRD/DNC less valuable.

Wildfire also needs to be able to critical hit. I understand it's a very high potency ability and variance issues would escalate, but I propose making it an auto-crit and balancing the potency accordingly. The reason for this is simply because it's currently useless to crit-based raid buffs (Chain Stratagem and Battle Litany).

Problem - AoE Toolkit: As of DT, Auto-Crossbow was a gain on 5+ targets. This is pretty terrible for what is meant to be our heat spender. As of 7.1, this is now still the case and could be even worse thanks to the Flamethrower and Double Check/Checkmate buffs. Why? Because Auto-Crossbow does not refresh Double Check/Checkmate like Heat Blast does. I am very unsure as to why this decision was made. It seems strange to me to not refresh them. If it's a balance thing, I don't know why this matters as Dungeons are over-geared and destroyed very quickly due to their low tuning presumably for first-time MSQ accessibility. Otherwise I'm out of ideas.

Flamethrower is a pain to use. A channelled ability on a job with free movement does not make sense and is often interrupted by ground AoEs. Recently free movement was given to TCJ on Ninja so surely we could have the same benefit?

We have no AoE use for battery still. This was taken away when Bishop was removed in 5.0.

The AoE toolkit in general has very little coherence. Perhaps this is part of the theme of having the multi-tool which I understand as a priority system is nice, but in practice it feels very awkward to use.

Solution: Make Auto-Crossbow refresh Double Check/Checkmate. Give Wildfire AoE drop-off. Give Bishop Turret back or give Automaton Queen AoE drop-off with its finishers or something. Rework Flamethrower entirely or change it so it's no longer a channelled ability that we have to stand still for.

Problem - Purpose: This can apply to all 3 phys-ranged and on a macro level, the entire game. but MCH suffers most again due to its lack of damage output in any prolonged uptime scenario where everyone is able to attack target(s) without struggle. Currently phys-ranged perform the exact same mechanics as everyone else. There was a time years ago when we were ideal for not only making up for lack of melee uptime, but also performing mechanics that involved being away from the party. Liquid Hells, Pantrokrator, God-Kefka Forsakens, Nidhogg Adds, the list goes on. This is no longer the case, and so our overall purpose feels vastly dulled down. There is a conversation here about fight design which is a much larger/different discussion and perhaps not appropriate for this thread specifically, but phys-ranged was the ideal role for this.

Solution: Encounter design needs to change OR roles like casters need to go back to being... well, casters instead of magical-ranged. I won't elaborate too much since this is somewhat outside the scope of MCH specifically.

Problem - Ping friendliness: This has always been an issue with many jobs in the game, however MCH is of course a job that suffers greatly due to constant double-weaving and fast GCD timers during Hypercharge. Efforts have been made to alleviate this by giving us Heat Blast stacks which was very good and thank you for that, however it does not solve the issue of Wildfire as clipping will still occur usually above 80 ping or so, to my knowledge. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Personally without a VPN, I am even clipping on 35-40 ping due to unstable routing to servers. This is not an ISP issue on my end.

Solution: Remove or extend Wildfire's detonation timer to ensure that the 6-stack recommendation is always able to be met. I don't think it's very fun for players to be penalised simply because of where they live or if they're unable to gain access to better internet. Server routing is also an issue as mentioned but that's again a larger conversation than what's appropriate here.

Problem - Miscellaneous: I've talked broadly about the toolkit feeling jank to use at times. Automaton Queen is another example of this. It is odd that the Queen's timer starts as soon as it's spawned and takes 5 seconds out of its 12 to even begin attacking. Once the timer reaches 0, it then performs its finishers. The conseqence of this is if a target dies (an add like DSR P5 meteors was a good example of this issue) when the timer hits 0, Queen will not perform its finishers on a subsequent target and will instead disappear.

Solution: When summoning Queen, don't start its timer until it attacks either with Arm Punch or Roller Dash, and then have the finishers take place within the timer as well.

That's about all I can think of for now. Please reply with other issues if you have encountered them or have other ideas to solve things. I don't expect everyone to agree but let's keep it civil to ensure good feedback is given. This has been tried several times before and I don't expect much to come of it, but we're told to give feedback so this is once again our best shot. YouTube videos etc. from other creators clearly aren't moving the needle either, sadly.

Worth to note that MCH does have its benefits still. It is good in any scenario where building gauge for subsequent phases (like in an ultimate) is powerful and when used correctly, yields good results. I'm not just talking about total damage over an entire encounter but for individual phases with their own separate enrage casts. The Barrel Stabiliser change wasn't great for us but it's still functional for this too. The Drill charges and Chainsaw combo are nice changes that have allowed us more freedom of rotation and Dismantle is of course quite valuable as a back-up or extra especially during progression. Thank you for these. Unfortunately though, the job is still held back by what I think are quite simple things that would go a long way to both balancing and making the job far more playable.

Yes I'm aware that balance isn't the biggest deal in FFXIV and everything remains playable, however being significantly weaker than BRD/DNC for years brings into question what the principle behind MCH balance is.

Thanks for reading.

[nguyentri11]

Thematically I would've thought that MCH, the job with various weaponry at its disposal, would be the most versatile and coherent with its single-target and AoE actions. But somehow it's the most awkward compared to literally any other job out there.

[AyakaJogasaki]

I feel like the devs have no idea what to do with MCH and have just given up, especially with the latest change to the Flamethrower buff. Is it even a buff? You’re probably better off building your gauge for the next boss. I always thought they would balance around Savage and Ultimates, but after seeing this change, it seems like it’s only useful for dungeons. Overall, the MCH buffs feel like a slap in the face—worse than the 10-potency buff Drill seems to get every patch. Just make Wildfire a buff already. Heck, turn Flamethrower into a burning DoT. Do something with it.

Don’t get me wrong—I genuinely enjoy MCH’s playstyle and have fun with it, more so than Bard or DNC. But every time new "difficult" content is released, I’m left wondering: am I playing for my own fun, or should I switch to Bard/DNC to make things easier for the other 7 players?

[Aco505]

Problem - Ping friendliness: This has always been an issue with many jobs in the game, however MCH is of course a job that suffers greatly due to constant double-weaving and fast GCD timers during Hypercharge. Efforts have been made to alleviate this by giving us Heat Blast stacks which was very good and thank you for that, however it does not solve the issue of Wildfire as clipping will still occur usually above 80 ping or so, to my knowledge. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Personally without a VPN, I am even clipping on 35-40 ping due to unstable routing to servers. This is not an ISP issue on my end.

Solution: Remove or extend Wildfire's detonation timer to ensure that the 6-stack recommendation is always able to be met. I don't think it's very fun for players to be penalised simply because of where they live or if they're unable to gain access to better internet. Server routing is also an issue as mentioned but that's again a larger conversation than what's appropriate here.

Agreed on finding solutions to make it easier overall. However, it feels like until now these have been band-aids. These kinds of issues would be far less common if the communication between server and the player's computer didn't add the extra delay when weaving, as outlined in this post: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...tions-normally.

As a content creator yourself, I'd like to ask you or anyone else you might know to address this issue directly with the devs during Fan Fests or any other similar venues. Forum user Nekkowe gave them a very detailed account on the problem and even got a response from in-game support so they do have the information, but we have not had any response on the matter whatsoever since then.

You can find Nekkowe's original bug post here, the video evidence asked by in-game support here, and the in-game reply here.

[Hanzz96]

These are great issues to point out and thank you for making this post Seren, hopefully the devs finally listen.

I would like to point out another problem that MCH suffers from that makes them undesirable compared to DNC/BRD in terms of putting potency into the parties buffs
MCH burst is simply too long and the tail end of it usually the second hypercharge falls out of 20 second buffs. It's another reason that MCH is often locked out of optimisation groups in Party Finder besides all the issues you listed.

I definitely agree that the quick band-aid and logical short-term solution is giving MCH a 2min raid buff or a personal buff similar to BRD's Ranging Strikes or GNB's No Mercy so that MCH can at least fulfil the role a "selfish" dps is supposed to be designed for and feed the parties raid buffs with damage output that makes up for the lack of raid utility. SAM does this perfectly and until DT so did BLM (as you mentioned they now face the same issues with PCT as MCH does with DNC & BRD)

The lose of barrel stabiliser as it was I believe will be catastrophic for MCH's viability in the upcoming Ultimate. MCH's identity in short phased encounters was being able to pool resources but a 30 second timer on the free HC limits that. Also why did they take away old BS to give it to DNC a job that now has massive overcap issues?! It's insane.

WF not being able to crit feels like a relic of HW spaghetti code and yeah it should just be am auto crit/DH
MCH having the only ability in the ENTIRE game that cannot crit makes the job even more silly.

[Serenaya]

Agreed on finding solutions to make it easier overall. However, it feels like until now these have been band-aids. These kinds of issues would be far less common if the communication between server and the player's computer didn't add the extra delay when weaving, as outlined in this post: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...tions-normally.

As a content creator yourself, I'd like to ask you or anyone else you might know to address this issue directly with the devs during Fan Fests or any other similar venues. Forum user Nekkowe gave them a very detailed account on the problem and even got a response from in-game support so they do have the information, but we have not had any response on the matter whatsoever since then.

You can find Nekkowe's original bug post here, the video evidence asked by in-game support here, and the in-game reply here.

I feel like this is a problem they just don't have the capacity or ability to solve. It's something that's never spoken about, never addressed and is even denied if previous Media Tour Q&A's are anything to go by (the EW one specifically was the one that quizzed Yoshi on higher ping affecting gameplay and they said there wasn't sufficient information. That was before that bug report specifically, but still I realise the Q&A is directly mentioned in the thread you linked). I think Mr Happy even did a similar thing. I've never seen video's of his be acknowledged either and he's made plenty regarding the state of MCH in general. DT's Media Tour did not talk about it much, if at all presumably because they'd know it'd be dodged but... who knows. It's disheartening.

Either way, it certainly feels like an issue that's being pushed under the rug whenever possible, and I'd love to hear anything at all about how this stuff works from the dev's point of view but unfortunately I'm unsure if I have the reach to get that to happen. Thank you for this though, I'll see what I can do, if anything.

[Hanzz96]

I feel like this is a problem they just don't have the capacity or ability to solve. It's something that's never spoken about, never addressed and is even denied if previous Media Tour Q&A's are anything to go by (the EW one specifically quizzed Yoshi on higher ping affecting gameplay and they said there wasn't sufficient information. That was before that bug report specifically, but still). I think Mr Happy even did a similar thing. I've never seen video's of his be acknowledged either and he's made plenty regarding the state of MCH in general. DT's Media Tour did not talk about it much, if at all presumably because they'd know it'd be dodged but... who knows. It's disheartening.

Either way, it certainly feels like an issue that's being pushed under the rug whenever possible, and I'd love to hear anything at all about how this stuff works from the dev's point of view but unfortunately I'm unsure if I have the reach to get that to happen. Thank you for this though, I'll see what I can do, if anything.

I have a feeling they can't address it because the game still has a lot more technical debt than SE wants to admit.

[Serenaya]

Worst part is, it's a running trend. Same thing happened with EW launch and us being blamed for the infamous 2002 error which then turned out to be a bug in their server code. I really would like them to look into this deeper but... it's a big ask.

[brinn12]

Machinist issues will always worsen with the release of new melee jobs, which has happened in the last two expansions (for balancing purposes, Picto is considered melee). If these new jobs are overpowered by design, as Yoshi-P mentioned, they'll eventually have to buff most DPS jobs in the game to close the gap since no nerfs will be applied.

If MCH is released weaker than Bard and Dancer, MCH mains will have to accept that the job will remain weak throughout the entire expansion. Bard and Dancer will get buffed in every patch even if they are not directly buffed, which has been the case for Bard in Dawntrail. Considering that Square is hesitant to see Physical Ranged jobs dealing melee DPS numbers, this trend is likely to continue until MCH receives a raid buff or the entire role is reworked. I also don’t see how this will improve in the next expansion if they release an overpowered Physical Ranged job, stronger than the current BRD. People might just play the overpowered ranged job rather than the other three.

MCH is paying a tax within the Physical Ranged role, which is already taxed for not having cast times or melee weaponskills. With every new expansion released, "ranged tax" increases. MCH/BRD/DNC/SMN/RDM receive buffs across multiple patches, but these buffs become irrelevant when the level cap increases by 10 again, as SE inevitably scraps the work it has done during the previous expansion. Ranged players were asking for mechanics to justify the existence of a tax, SE gave us these mechs, but taxed the ranged even more with the release of Dawntrail, pushing more players away from the role. This issue is mitigated by DNC and BRD with very good teammates, as these jobs not only have raid buffs, but more buffs than any melee or caster. MCH cannot compensate in the same way, and cannot be buffed to the top of the charts like BLM/VPR/SAM. It should have received a 5% raid buff in Endwalker already. Just put a buff in Barrel Stabilizer and decrease the job's personal potencies. This will not break job identity, as it's going to play the same way.

[CKNovel]

I wish you luck, we tried to push for many of those changes back in... check notes 5.0!

My hypothesis is that for some reason, they're aware of the issues & feedback but don't think they're worth spending time and resources on.